Observations on economics, the academy, the wider world, and things that run on rails.

21.6.15

CONFIRMING STEREOTYPES?

We've previously seen Pacific Educational [c.q.] Group turning the St. Paul public schools into dangerous places. They have brain-brothers in Oregon, whose diversity training is instructive, if not in the way the authors envision. Insta Pundit quips, "Funny how the 'progressive' folks are always saying things that sound like they should come from the 1920s KKK." Specifically, we see "white culture" as "promoting independence, self expression, personal choice, individual thinking and achievement." Yes, that's from one of the training documents (EAG News read them all, they're not for the faint of heart) and it goes on to contrast this "white culture" norm with "adherence to norms, respect for authority / elders" ... obviously those hellions in St. Paul didn't get the memo. It gets more disturbing from there. When a thinking individual interacts with another thinking individual, what norms will emerge. To repeat, as repeat I must, "[W]hen practitioners of one strategy interact with practitioners of another, the strategy that confers advantages on adopters might look like oppression to defenders of the losing strategy." Why, then, continue with this "celebration" of diversity in which a less effective strategy becomes a different way of knowing, or whatever it is this week?